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This month on the MarketWatch Monthly we have a general update of the market and some of the more notable items that have been up in the market in the February/March timeframe.

Seal show – the items that never made it out of the package.

This month on the Seal Show we have a diverse offering of toys from Electronic games, to staples of the vintage line, to off shoots from the core line of toys and all points in between. This is a bit of a hodge podge this month, but I hope you enjoy some of the unique items we found on the market.

Our first auction is an interesting piece to feature, the original Atari Return of the Jedi cartridge MISB. We never really cover these as part of the Vintage line, but I’m officially taking these back and incorporating them into the Vintage lineage going forward, as really this is the evolution of Toys into the digital world.

Our second items come as a pair, as they are a quick showcase of two really great items that ended a few weeks back. Another part of Rebel Scum Emporiums auctions from Q1 these were some of the last auctions to get picked up. The key piece to mention here is the ESB Tie Fighter, definitely one of the more difficult to find pieces especially in the condition we find it in here.

Moving on down the line we have two great staples of the hobby, the CS version of the Landspeeder and the original SW Millennium Falcon. The SW Landspeeder is such a great toy and one of the most recognizable in the line. We saw a good showing on price here as that $300 price tag is right on for an AFA80, worth mentioning once in a while I’m sure we’ll see this piece again on the MW in the coming year.

Not forgetting our large Corelian ship, we have for I believe the 2nd time only a sealed Falcon for review on the MarketWatch. Due to it’s size and price finding a sealed Falcon from the original SW release is quite the feet, especially over the past few years as the market has been really dry on this piece. A great showing on price and an iconic piece overall, the Falcon could be the most recognizable (non-figure) toy in the series

Coming off a full update on the loose side of the hobby, we have a very focused update for March with only two auctions getting call outs.

Our first comes off the heels of the Lili Ledy featured items last month. Given that we were able to feature four of the five extremely popular Lili Ledy Variants, I wanted to showcase the fifth, that being the super rare Red Cloak Bib Fortuna. This piece has always had a special place in US collectors hearts, as it’s featured in a number of photo samples and even in some production photos, bringing up the question, why didn’t we get the red cape Bib in the states? Although I can’t speculate on why this occurred, I would venture a guess that between the SWCA.com and Rebel Scum you should be able to do your own research on this piece. This particular item is graded with a COA from Tom Derby, the retail is a bit high from where I’ve seen these land in the last few years, but still in line with FMV.

Following up to our Lili Ledy figure we have another great foreign company example the walking R2D2 from Takara. Know not only for the Star Wars line Takara is one of the biggest toy producers in the Eastern Hemisphere with hundreds of great lines produced over the years. Here we have a graded version of the figure receiving an AFA85 overall and a strong price point of $310.

This month there are three specific auctions I wanted to highlight. This showcases some of the most unique and most difficult items to find in the hobby. From a 12” prototype, to a Canadian rarity these are a few of the most unique items show up on the market in the last month.

One of the, if not the most sought after item in the 12” Series is the Leia Bespin Figure or for that matter any of the new figures from ESB Large Format release. With only IG-88 making it shelves all we have of the other items is preproduction and mock ups. Here we have the box for Leia Bespin, the boxes were truly incredible when it came to the 12” line. With more images and scenes then their 3” counterparts they made the line more exciting and visually stimulating. This particular piece was graded with an overall grade of AFA85. A truly unique item for only the high end collector, it should be noted the price came down from the original listing by $4000.

Along with Yak Face, the MOC Anakin figure is the only other truly rare MOC from the last 17 release. With no circulation in the US and most countries abroad, the Anakin figure was released exclusively in Australia. Thus they are few and far between in terms of availability and especially in good condition. Want to turn that up a notch, try finding a clear bubble Anakin Skywalker – only 6 exist in the AFA database and most have turned yellow since.

The Wind-Up R2-D2 is truly unique and another take on everyone’s garbage can shaped droid. With the majority of these coming overseas from Takara, find a Canadian version is quite rare and as one can see very expensive. With an overall grade of 85 the price tag is fitting for the R2-D2 focus collector that already has everything R2 already, in fact a certain collector comes to mind when I see this piece in particular, oh let’s say someone with a round room painted like R2… Anyway a cool piece in great condition at for a boat load of cash is definitely worth mentioning.

That brings us to the end of the March MarketWatch Update. Next month we’ll have our regular update in a shortened fashion along with an important article on pricing called “This is reality – please come back to it”. A segment that will focus on the average values amongst different categories of items on the market today. Call it a baseline, but it’s really just meant to bring us all to the same page in terms of what true fair market values look like in 2014.

December Marketwatch – Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope

As we close out 2013 so do we close out our movie focus on the general update. This month’s focus on the Star Wars line is a fitting end to the series and item for item released it’s our most comprehensive figure coverage to date with all 21 figures being represented.

The toyline for original Star Wars movie was iconic and epic in every way and really created the 3 ¾ inch action figure genre as it was the first successful line in that scale. The line was as mass produced as any, however early lack of availability made demand shoot through the roof and it never caught up. Thus the original line of figures in the vintage series remains extremely sought after and in high demand amongst novices and beginning collectors.

With the first release of the Early Bird set to the release of Boba Fett the line had several monumental steps as it recreated the Star Wars universe. With our review I’ll cover all the main production categories and detail out the line to the fullest extent based on recent auctions and online BIN prices.

MOC:

The original first 21 figures form the base of the Star Wars vintage toy universe. They have the unique distinction of being released with each series in their original form. Thus the figures touched a huge span of children through the late 70s and early 80s, with these seeing a retail lifecycle of 7 years and up to another year and half of closeout shelf life.

With the update this month I bring you a full showing of the first 21 MOC, with some extremely high grade examples that drove some insane prices. Overall the usual suspects of Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker Tatooine, and Han Solo all saw incredible prices for first release versions of each figure. Surprisingly R2-D2 was the next highest priced auction with an AFA85 seeing a $1933 price tag. With that here’s the rest of the line and what we saw each achieve in recent auctions.

As many know the 1:6 Scale or 12” Action Figure was the initial direction that was intended for the main offering in the Star Wars vintage toyline. However the inability, to make vehicles such as the Falcon and X-Wing pushed Kenner to go to the 3 ¾ Inch version vs. the large scale format, given the enormous price points for large scale vehicles. Thankfully, Kenner did produce a line of large format figures featuring 11 very detailed versions of some of our favorite characters. The line spanned from 10 characters in the first movie and even went into Empire with the early release of Boba Fett, following his release as a small scale figure. With our coverage this month we have a few sealed examples of boxed items to show the top end of what we’ve seen in the past few months on eBay. The biggest callouts this month have to be the Boba Fett and Meccano Darth Vader Figures not only given the price tag, but also given the rarity of Darth and the condition of Boba Fett.

From the vehicles of the first line to the large scale toys such as the Laser Pistol, the boxed items from the original installment of the Star Wars line were ground breaking. Not only did we see incredible replication of the items from the movie, we also saw Kenner go into new space with ancillary items for the series such as playsets. The vehicles are some of the most recognizable toys in the world and are truly ahead of their time in design and detail. Overall the first movie only brought us roughly 12 items in this realm, but the success would lead to an expansion of these products with subsequent movies.

Like most toy-lines of the day the Holiday Catalogs and the Catalog Channel as a whole was a major part of the overall distribution strategy for any retail manufactures. The Catalog Channel played an integral role in not only the distribution of the product, but also in creating unique offerings for the consumers, specifically in the way of Figure Multi-Packs. By creating unique offerings of figures they created their own sub genre in the hobby which albeit a niche, is still popular today.

A quick mention on the Die Cast line, it was a short lived venture that started with the Star Wars line and continued on through the early stages of the ESB line. The run had some success, especially given the dynamics of that niche at the time. Here we have a few items that came out in that first run with the Star Wars toyline.

This month we have a three special items that I wanted to give some attention to. A super rare item, a cool and unique but not so rare item, and finally an auction that brings some of the crazy MOC prices back into perspective.

Well not exactly the most rare item, it’s definitely not overly common to find a sealed set of Meccano Jawa figures. These particular items are unique in their own way and really don’t fit into any categorization amongst collectors.

The most intriguing piece to come up on the market in quite some time, this version of an X-Wing prototype is really unique given how close it is to the finished product. With most of colors represented it’s very close to the production run of the X-Wing. A very interesting piece to surface and quite the price it demanded in the market thus making it one of my personal favorites to appear on the MW in sometime.

A set of the original 12 in decent condition going for a strong retail price, nothing too out of the norm but at the same time these figures weren’t really cheap either. It’s a great way to close out our items for the month as it brings us full circle from the$4000 Boba Fett we covered off at the beginning of the post.

That’s it for this month’s edition, happy holidays and be sure to check back for the update on Yoda, and the upcoming general updates, in January reviewing the Holiday rush, and in February looking at the state of the hobby in 2014.

Welcome to the second edition of the end of Summer Round up, this installment focusing on Return of the Jedi. Though we haven’t kept up with our original plans for the schedule we’re still trying to get these published as close as we can.

Tough, tough, tough topic, when you talk about scope there’s nothing more difficult than trying to pull together a comprehensive review of the Return of the Jedi toy line. Let’s just cover the basic numbers, 90 MOC versions including variants (with 4 main backers 48, 65, 77 and 79), 30+ Boxed Items Play sets-Vehicles-Creatures-Mini Rigs-Large Toys, 4 Mailers, 26 Catalog Multipacks, 100+ versions of 2 Packs, the Plush Series, not to mention the 50 figure proofs and several large proofs released for the Revenge series. However we didn’t see a few things in this release that we did with Empire or Star Wars. The 12” Large Format figures we’re never tried out in the market, nor were the-Packs continued, additionally nothing was produced from a die-cast perspective. Still the breadth of this line makes it difficult to be comprehensive.

There is a reason that very few toy lines were progressive like the Kenner Vintage Star Wars series, and I don’t define progressive as anything to do with it being a ground breaking line, rather I mean it was one of the few toy lines to produce toys for the previous movie’s figures during a sequel’s toy run, and in this case build to the collect all 79 motif. It’s expensive to maintain, there usually is a rate of diminishing returns, and overall it’s just not the best business decision if you’re trying to achieve scale or efficiencies. That’s why you don’t see this strategy carried out in many lines today.

Revenge of the Jedi

The only place to start with this post is the genesis of the line; that being the Revenge of the Jedi pre-production items. With some strong availability and wide breadth the Revenge of the Jedi proofs are a favorite of many collectors. Given that we ran through an entire review of a large lot of proofs we’ll just reference the massive collection that was up for auction this past year, via our earlier post seen here February MarketWatch – General.

Boxed Items:

The ROTJ series was packed with a plethora of items, and to kick things off we’ll take a look at all things cardboard with 8 corners. The boxed items, specifically vehicles, play sets and other figure related item are a major part of the ROTJ release. There was a wide diversification of items released with the Return of the Jedi series, you had the continuation of some staples, like the Falcon, and X-Wing, the reintroduction to a few Star Wars era items via the Collectors series, and of course a slew of unique items to the period to reflect Jabba’s Palace to the Ewok Village. Suffice it to say this particular release had a lot to choose from, depending on which planet you wanted to recreate in your basement or backyard.

One of the most iconic toys in the series was the AT AT, it appears for only a brief second in ROTJ however due to the popularity in the ESB line they continued this sku into the series for a short run. More rare then it’s ESB counterpart the ROTJ box is a love it or hate situation, most fans are still more apt to go after the traditional Hoth version, but some collectors swear that the ROTJ version is one of the best. There’s not a lot of lukewarm feelings here, no pun intended. Here we have a Q graded item that went for market value. Although a MISB ROTJ At At pulls in on average $1000-1500, this is a great alternative for someone who still wants that museum look without having to drop as much cash.

Tie Interceptor $450 – ROTJ Tie Interceptor MISB One of the few new “Vehicles” for ROTJ and one of the coolest in the series the Tie Interceptor finished off the three movie run for the Tie series of vehicles. In this case we have a good price for a really nice item, but right inline with Market Value.

Tie Interceptor – $675 – AFA85 – Tie Interceptor Moving on we have a graded version of the item, with a grade of 85 this was right in line with market value, and maybe even a bit low in comparison to some historical auctions.

Y-Wing – $511 – AFA80 – Y-Wing Another new addition to the Vehicle line up for ROTJ was the ever popular Y-Wing. Seen in the first movie we didn’t get the actual vehicle until 1983 in toy version. This to date is one of the toughest vehicles to find sealed in the ROTJ line with under 20 graded examples out in the market. Overall a good price for an AFA80, however the buyer now has the item listed for $1299 on their website:(

ROTJ Millennium Falcon – $1500ish – AFA 80 – ROTJ Falcon AFA 80 Our second re-released item from the Vehicle line up is the Falcon. This is the 3rd version of the Falcon to be released from an artwork perspective. Showcasing the unreleased sandstorm scene from ROTJ, this lasts as one of my personal favorites pieces of artwork in the Star Wars toy line. A great item and a fairly high price given AFA80 examples tend to draw closer to the $1000-1200 mark.

ROTJ X-Wing – $899 –AFA80 – ROTJ X-Wing The last of the vehicles covered this month could be the most surprising from a price perspective. Here we find an AFA80 X-Wing Fighter – Battle Damaged, with a price tag of $899. Even though we see a hefty price tag it’s actually on par for this particular piece. For some reason the X-Wing remains in short supply in comparison to most of the other items in the release, the same can be said to some extent for the Battle Damaged Tie Fighter. There are only a handful of examples 80 and up to date, in the case of the X-Wing, the AFA75 is truly the AFA80 as it seems to be the fat middle of the grading band. A very cool piece and something we may not see in this condition again.

Figure Sets/Cases/Play sets

Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band MISB – AFA75 – $324 – Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band A fan favorite the Rebo Band set it one of the best items from the ROTJ release. Two versions were made with variations on the instruments/microphone stands. Here we have the more common version with silver microphones and a black flute. In very good condition (AFA 75) this item did drive a good price for either side as it’s right on par with recent auctions. I chose this one in particular as it also had a clear bubble, which is really important on this item if you want to see the artwork that is used in the backdrop of the figures.

Jabba the Hutt – $395 – AFA80 – Jabba the Hutt AFA 80 One of the more popular characters in the movie came to the toy line in a very unique way, via a play set vs. a cardback. The Jabba the Hutt play set is a well-made replication of the scene from Return of the Jedi. This version was priced a bit high, and didn’t get any interest from the collecting community. Still a very nice example and easily a $300 item in this condition.

Darth Vader Case – $139.50 ROTJ Darth Vader Figure Case MISB The Darth Vader Case was such a staple of the ESB line and to this day is instantly recognizable by the general populous that it was no surprise to see it show up in the ROTJ release. Although this was a short lived run for the item, due to the C-3PO Case. Several made it through in sealed packages. Here we have a very nice example with a price that’s right on for the quality.

Scout Pistol – $180 – C8 – Scout Pistol MISB The Scout Pistol was another spot on replication from the movie, along the with Green Lightsaber it was the only new large scale toy for ROTJ, as all other items from the era were released in previous toy lines. Here we have a great example for a good price as these seem to average around $200 sealed.

ROTJ Lightsaber Green AFA80 – $450 Est – ROTJ Force Lightsaber AFA80 Green Here we have a great MISB graded example of an item we discussed a few months back. The Force Lightsaber example we see here went for a strong price, the grading alone would run about $150, and there are only a few Green graded examples out here.

Mailers – Standard and Multi Pack8-Pack Catalog Mailer – Open with sealed bags – $382 – 8 Pack Catalog Mailer As mentioned in the intro there were 26 catalog mailers to be released in conjunction with the ROTJ toy line. Here we have one of the few large 8-Packs containing a great selection of characters across a few movies. An average price for something in great condition overall, a really nice grab for someone.

8 Pack Graded Mailer Sealed – $556 – UKG85 – UKG ROTJ 8 Pack Sealed Very hard to find are the mailers that are still sealed and in the case of this one, in extremely good condition as well. There are few examples out there of this piece graded, but only a few are still sealed like this version, rather then getting it U Graded a lot of collectors go this route and just opt for the display version. A really strong price for this piece, which was in great condition overall. When it comes to Mailers I did want to take a second to mention the four single figure releases related to ROTJ. They are plentiful, but still great items to collect, below I’ve listed a little bit about the going rates I’ve seen over the past summer of 2013, values are not graded. Grading costs run $30-$100 depending on the number of pieces in the mailer.

Admiral Ackbar, came in multiple versions, the more pieces of paperwork, the higher the value. Going rate $30-70 depending on condition, again more pieces = more money!

Nien Nunb, pretty standard with just the catalog, these particular items goes for roughly $25 on average for a very good example.

Emperor, much like Nien Nunb he mainly just came with a catalog, thus usually just three pieces to the set. This past summer he average a price of about $15-20, you can also find him sealed for relatively cheap as well.

Anakin Skywalker, per capita the most expensive of the mailers, it’s mainly due to the scarcity vs. the others, in most cases about 6:1 to the other three. It’s lack of MOC release in the US and association with the POTF line drive this piece up to an average of about $30-40 for the three piece set.

Figures MOC:

When it comes to the ROTJ release figures were plentiful. As mentioned previously there were 4 main releases in the United States, the 48 Back with Nien Nunb offer, 65 Back, 77 Back and 79 Back. At the heart the rarity goes from 79 backs, to 48 backs to 77 and finishing with 65 backs which were the most plentiful in pure units produced. The 79 back release was somewhat limited as you can see via the Kellerman matrices. The release was really just The series saw a strange phenomenon that would carry over into the POTF line; that being the eventual yellowing of the figures bubbles. All in all just from a grading perspective nearly 80% of ROTJ figures had issues with their bubbles yellowing. The series saw 7 figures re-released with new photos for the packaging, along with other variants such as Luke’s Hair Color, Han’s Lapel, Biker Scout’s Mask, and Luke’s Lightsaber. Thus all in all there was a lot out there in terms of just MOC variants (90 to be exact).

Here we have a sampling of the figures released on ROTJ Cardbacks, overall we mixed up some AFA figures with non-graded MOCs, we tried to keep this limited to just clear MOC figures, but let in a few tinted cards where we needed. You can see a lot of breadth here, but what really surprises me are some of the price swings. Some of these were incredible bargains and a few saw nice premiums for the sellers. Because of the number of items I’ve just stuck to some basic information, the figure, condition, price, grading disposition, a link, and a few words on each.

Bossk MOC – C9 – $150 – Bossk MOC Here’s a great example of Bossk, near the top of the mark in terms of condition this version saw a strong showing with a price of $150, thus supporting the hypothesis that people will pay big dollars for clear bubbles and great condition items.

Chewbacca – C9 – $135 – Chewbacca ROTJ 48 Back Chewy is always a fan favorite and here we have to toughest of the ROTJ MOCs to find, that being the 48 back. Here we saw a good price for a figure that typically is the middle of the road when it comes to the ending price.

ERG – Clipper – $380 AFA85 – ROTJ Emperors Royal Guard MOC Clipper Just to shake things up a bit we have included one foreign item from the ROTJ line up. This ERG clipper went for a large sum of money but that’s how things go in the Clipper world. Always popular with collectors the Royal Guard could be the best figure released in the ROTJ series.

Greedo – 48 Back – AFA75 $190 – ROTJ Greedo 48 Back MOC Although he was killed in the first hour of the first movie, Greedo remains a favorite figure of many collectors today, myself included. Here we have a 48 back with a grade of 75. Like most of the 48 backs there isn’t a vast number of any figure in the series readily available, with most figures having less then 10 examples graded throughout the years.

Lando Calrissian – AFA80 – $220 – Lando Calrissian MOC AFA80 The Lando man saw a great price realized on this AFA80 clear bubble auction, it’s funny as I believe I bought mine (ungraded) for around $50, and it was graded am 80 clear eventually as well. A great looking piece and an awesome price for the seller.

Princess Leia Organa 48 Back – C7 – $244 (Resold at $204) – Princess Leia Organa 48 Back Sometimes basic logic doesn’t come into play in the world of figure collecting. The ROTJ release of the original Leia figure is the rarest of any of the three movies, with the 48 back being an exceptionally difficult item to find. However here we have one that sold for an extremely reasonable price. Condition could be the issue, however most of the 48 back Leia figures graded and in MOC circulation are in extremely poor condition, thus I’m not really sure why this didn’t pull in the average price of $400 at least.

Rebel Commando- AFA85 – $149 – Rebel Commando MOC A very nice example and one of the few AFA85 figures that we’ve seen this month, the Rebel Commando, along with Klaatu, Weequay (See below) and a few other ROTJ release figures have consistently been seeing top dollar for good examples as good quality versions of these figures are tough to come by.

Wicket MOC 77 Back – AFA – $239 – Yoda Alt Photo AFA 80 Our only Ewok figure this month, here we have a great example of Wicket. Probably the most sought after of the Ewoks, he demands a top price, in this case right on the money at $239 for an AFA80. He’s particularly very difficult to find with a clear bubble, close in difficulty to Emperor or the Rancor Keeper.

2 Packs This could be referred to as the Summer of the 2-Pack, not to be confused with the Summer of Tupac. Droves of the ROTJ 2-Packs hit the market this summer, with nearly 20 represented below for your review. One of the most unloved items of the Vintage Kenner line, this was basically a clearance strategy for the overstock figures that Kenner was holding onto towards the end of the ROTJ toy run. Plagued by dented and cracked bubbles, card backs with generic artwork and blank backs, this was Kenner Star Wars on the cheap. However those that survived in good condition have homes amongst focus collectors and see strong prices especially for certain figure combinations.

Bib Fortuna Ackbar – $222 ROTJ 2-Pack Bib Fortuna Admiral Ackbar The first of four 2-Packs featuring Bib Fortuna as our left character in the bundle is also the most expensive and in the best overall condition. Condition is important to some for these items, as in recent history the highest grade ever given to a 2-Pack was an AFA75.

IG-88 Darth Vader – $436 ROTJ 2-Pack IG-88 Darth Vader I think one of the biggest groups of collectors who pick up 2-Packs are character focus collectors, they make a nice addition to a character collection and a bit of randomness given there really was no rhyme or reason for how these were thrown together.

Luke Original Bib Fortuna – $410 – ROTJ 2-Pack Luke Skywalker Bib Fortuna Nearing the end of our list we find a very rare item, that being the inclusion of Luke Tatooine in a 2-Pack, along with Yoda he is one of the toughest to find in a 2-Pack from this series, in part due to the fact that these were overstock figures and both Luke and Yoda were such popular figures in the main release.

The plush line was an extension for Kenner to try and reach a new demographic with the series. The line was however not as successful as initially hoped, and thus a lot of overstock made it into the collectors market and made these items fairly common. Unloved items for sure, but worthy of mentioning here.

Proof Sheet – Plush Line Tags – $130 – ROTJ Proof Sheet – Ewok Plush Tags One of my personal favorites from this past Summer is the Ewok Plush Line Proof Sheet. Featuring the tags for several of the Ewok Figures, this has a unique factor to it that I think embodies a lot of key Kenner Vintage line elements.

That about does it for this update on the ROTJ line and how well it sold this past summer, we hope you enjoy the deep dive.

Happy May (Okay early June) Space Freaks! As Spring turns to Summer we have a great line up of high end and rare auctions on this month’s general Marketwatch update. I mention the change of the seasons because it truly signifies a change in the market as well. Spring is typically one of the slowest times of the years in terms of overall transactions and variety of available pieces. It’s easy to say that there is greater focus on selling and buying from June to August given the number of auctions and drastic upward trend in prices realized. Thus we start my favorite season of the year, this my friends is hunting season for us! Before we see the turn it’s amazing to see some of the great deals for items that have hit the market in late April and May. Across the board we saw great deals on items that seldom come up on the market as well as some staples of the hobby that saw great deals for buyers in the market. One set of auctions that I’ve neglected to touch on was the series listed by a seller on eBay with the username Earlyretiree, very aptly put if this was truly someone that had been storing these through a number of years. I’ve copied a link to the auctions here –Early Retiree Auctions You can see for yourself some of the great items that were up at one time, this was a very cool and infrequent occurrence, although prices seemed to wane on the high side. We really had to narrow down the items for this month to a handful of individual auctions, each of which is unique in its own way. With that I hope you enjoy the findings.

Han Solo Bespin ESB Spain – $5611 – Han Solo Bespin – Spanish Wow, another piece of Spanish goodness for us to savor. This particular piece along with it’s other Spanish brethren fetched seem to be fetching hefty retails as of late; and this one is no exception at $5611. Quite the nice appreciation from the 200 Pesetas this would have gone for at retail back in the 1980s.

Han Solo Hoth – Spanish – $4500 or less…. – Han Solo Hoth To go along with our Spanish Han Bespin auction, we have the same Spanish version but this time for Han Hoth. Like the aforementioned auction this item saw a BIN price of $4500, with an actual price that more then likely wasn’t too far off the mark. Both of which eclipsed the selling price of the Luke Jedi version we covered in April. Leaving all of us to wish we grew up in Barcelona in the 1980s.

Chewbacca Palitoy – AFA75 – $5549 – Chewbacca Palitoy One of the highest price Palitoy MOC auctions of recent past, this Chewbacca saw an incredible price realized. Rare and in high demand, this piece is one of the most difficult MOCs for focus collectors to find. Chewbacca while a fan favorite doesn’t seem to command the prices that we see with several other characters such as Fett and Vader, but this example was definitely the exception to the rule. A great piece with a great character that lead to an incredible price.

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Popy Factory Sealed Figure Set of 12 – $5225 – Popy Sealed Figure Set When it comes down to my favorites auction of the month, I have no problem singling out this auction for a set of Popy figures sealed as a set from Takara. A line that has truly grown in popularity over the years, the Popy line of figures is truly a unique line given its spread of distribution and the fact that it’s one of the only successful “boxed figure” lines. This particular set features some of the most popular figures from the vintage line in sealed package straight from the factory. A truly unique item that I couldn’t find on the SWCA or through any of my auction history, thus this could be a one of a kind item. However I’m hesitant to give it that title given every time I state that a new example comes up within a year:)

Luke Skywalker Double Telescoping MOC – AFA85 – $13,500 – Luke Double Telescoping MOC Auction Keeping up with high end MOC auctions we move into the highest price item of the month. Although we’ve banished the loose figure to the HOF, the MOC version of Luke Skywalker with a Double Telescoping Lightsaber will remain a featured item when we see them arrive on the open market. This particular item is in pristine condition with an overall grade of AFA 85, which helped this item realize a price of $13K+. The carded Double Telescoping Lightsaber figures are quite the rarity in the overall scheme of Vintage Star Wars. Along with Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader (Both rarer in DT format), this piece is truly a grail to a many collectors and fans alike. Thus it’s important to document and showcase this item for future reference. Maybe we’ll see one pass the $15K mark in the near future.

Jawa Vinyl Cape – AFA85 – $5900 – Jawa Vinyl Cape MOC Auction Not too far from the HOF the Vinyl Cape Jawa has become a regular on the MarketWatch, between the rarity, the demand and the price it gets covered quite often and this may signal the last time as it’s the third appearance on the Marketwatch in the last year. Regardless it’s always nice to highlight a VC Jawa on the MarketWatch update, and with that let’s push this one to the Hall of Fame!

ESB Vinyl Case – AFA 85 – $560 – ESB Vinyl Case One of my personal favorites the Empire Strikes Back has several personal favorites when it comes to releases unique to that movie. You have the introduction of the At At and Scout Walker, Slave 1 and so many unique backdrops that were made into toy associated items. Something associated with each release is the vinyl carrying case with imagery from the movie on the front. This particular one does an incredible job at capturing all of the unique situations that we saw unfold in Empire. The artwork is exceptional in detail and truly one of the best cases put out by Kenner during the vintage run. This one sold for a fairly high price given the market this time of year, however it’s a high grade example and other AFA80 examples have seen prices of $300+ in the past few years.

ROTJ 3 Pack Darth Stormtroopers –ROTJ Catalog Mailer – Darth/Stormtroopers I wanted to quickly highlight this piece as it’s one of the rare occasions when we have something of this rarity come up on the market twice in a one year span of time. The original auction last summer went for $1375, quite a bit more than what we have here. However this supports a few ideas about selling and buying in the hobby:

Timing of auction is everything (Seasonally and Hourly/Daily)

Seasonality – Here we see an item sold in the Spring (Down Season) vs. Summer (High Point)

Day of week = Thursday one of the worst days of the week to sell based on historic prices realized.

Time of day = Not the worst considering it was in the afternoon in the states, but later in the evening would have been best.

Niche markets and ultra-rare items like this have some volatility.

More than anything what I want to land with this point is fairly simple, it’s rare, one of the rarest things to come up on eBay in the last year. But rarity isn’t always a good thing as this also limits the number of people who would bid on this. In this case the collecting community that would purchase an item like this is fairly limited to focus collectors and mailer collectors for the most part and thus there is greater volatility in pricing as one of the few collectors who would spend big dollars on this item

Condition is everything and the difference between the best of the best and 2nd best is quite a rather large span.

Simply put there aren’t many variations in condition but the tape is yellow and the box is a little more beat up then the example we saw last year. Thus I wouldn’t put this as the main driver of variance in price between the two auctions, but it definitely impacts the price overall. This auction probably isn’t the best example to support this point I wanted to convey, but what I want to convey is that the price difference between an 85 and 90 is consistently greater than that of the price variance between and 85 and 80. And when you’re dealing with high demand examples this holds true as well.

All of these components work together to the advantage or disadvantage of the seller/buyer depending on which side of the coin you’re on. And they’re key to the environment that we collect in, thus if you take nothing else away from this update (outside of the great items), take these three points to heart.

The time (Season-Day-Hour) that you sell an auction has a tremendous impact on the price.

The price variance from the best condition to 2nd best condition is usually the biggest price variance in terms of overall condition.

Niche items have more volatility in pricing due to the limited number of collectors in the market.

Check back next month later this month as we review some high grade examples of some of the most sought after pieces in the world of Vintage Star Wars collecting, a few ESB and SW 3-Packs and a pair of AFA90 Droids Boba Fett figures. Wampa Wampa

What a year we’ve seen in the Vintage community, Kellerman Auctions, some great finds of Uzay and some other rare figures and of course the ongoing dialogue around the sequel trilogy. With all of this going on there’s plenty of distractions for us to cover on the Market watch, but for the month of April we’re back to our normal coverage of the general market and what’s happened in March and thus far in the month of April. Given all of the auctions in the recent past I’ve broken this month’s update into 5

Key Sections:

Hall of Fame Entrance #1

General Notable Auctions

POTF = $$$

Foreign = $$$$$$

Round Up – Noteworthy Auctions without the full write up.

Rather than waxing intellectual about the subject let’s get right into the awesome items we’ve seen pop up in the market over the last month.

Hall of Fame

Well for the first time we’re not just covering an item, we’re also banishing it from any future Marketwatch segments. Given the number of times we’ve seen him pop up in the market over the past year we’re starting a new section of our Marketwatch, that being the Hall of Fame. After an item makes the MarketWatch 5 times we are moving the item to Hall of Fame Status, where the item gets the honored distinction of never being mentioned on the MarketWatch again.

And our first inductee is…..Double Telescoping Luke Skywalker – Loose. He’s been on the MarketWatch so many times that it’s time to say goodbye forever. But as we shun him to the dark depths of the HOF we also celebrate what might have been the most DT Luke filled month on Ebay, as we saw four unique graded versions sold over the past several weeks.

What’s interesting to me here is the variance in price points from the first AFA80 to the last. These types of scenarios can be fun to play with as we have more comparative data then we typically do month to month and year to year.

A couple thoughts on what’s driving some of the variance here:

Condition is a key factor as we can see the variance between the 75 and examples of 80s that are present. This is present with every figure out in the market to some extent and could be one of the largest drivers of price within a grouping of a specific figure.

Time of day – In addition to being the lowest grade example our first auction is also the only one sold in the AM. Now this is obviously not a global statement as I’m looking at the timing for United States, but historically we see higher prices attached to items that are sold in the evening vs. morning, mid-day or afternoon.

In addition to time and condition there are several sub factors that we could look at, the seller, the shipping charges and a few others, but the two we speak to above seem to be very appropriate given the variances we see here.

And with that please light a candle or listen to your favorite ballad as we bid farewell to the Double Telescoping Luke on the MarketWatch. He’s filled some great space and given us some great Wow moments, but his now too frequent appearance on the market and inclusion in several Marketwatch segments, moves him to the illustrious ranks of the Marketwatch hall of fame.

One of the most popular and also the rarest of the 12 Inch figures IG-88 is known to command a premium in the market. In this case we see a very admirable price realized for a great item. We had covered a version of IG-88 in the 12 inch form a few months back. However the condition wasn’t nearly what this piece was and neither was the resulting price point (Sub$1500). This just supports the fact that condition continues to be the largest driver of price within a particular figure, and I don’t mean just a slight increase, rather it’s a doubling or more of a fair example to a near mint example.

It could be the rarest of all multi packs to be released in mass, the Red Empire Strikes Back 6 pack is an iconic piece in the Star Wars vintage universe. One of two multi packs created for retail during the ESB release these two pieces are highly sought after with vintage collectors today. And why not, great colors, interesting figures and attractive price point that made expanding your figure collection more palatable for those on a budget. Given the short run of both sets and the small number of boxed examples that made it to this millennia, the price and demand for the items is extremely high.

The Darth Vader Case could be one of the most recognizable carrying cases in the history of action figures. It’s been in the background of several movies and was the most popular case from the Vintage Line. Thus when Kenner decided to diversify the Vintage line they did so with two augmentations of the original item via a bundled solution that was extremely short-lived. In one version we have Vader, IG-88 and Boba Fett, this far rarer and higher demand version (Due to the figures included) is one of the most sought after pieces in the original release with sealed examples reaching auction prices of $3000 or more in the recent past. The other version is the one that we are presented with, this set include Yoda, Luke Bespin and Darth Vader. It’s a great example of a piece that we rarely see come up on the market. This particular piece was in very good condition with minimal wear and tear given the age, and therefore drove a good, but lower than average price; given past auction performance.

One of the most popular and legendary figures in the series Yak Face a foreign release figure in the POTF line continues to demand extremely high prices for any carded examples. Here we have a nice example of the figure graded AFA 80Y, with a slight yellowing of the bubble which helps the overall visual appeal of the piece. This particular piece was part of a series of high end auctions that also included several of the key figures we’ll review in the Foreign figure section this month. Overall this piece went for a premium vs. historic auctions. The main thing that drove this variance is believed to be the additional traffic that these auctions received due to the number of high end auctions and coverage in a few micro blogs and web sites.

Although he’s not popular enough to keep his ghostly appearance in Return of the Jedi intact for the Blu-Ray, he’s still one of the most sought after figures carded figures in the vintage line. This is mainly due to his limited release globally on the POTF card back. On the other hand the loose version of Anakin is one of the most readily available figures in the last 17 given the mailer offer on the figure. Every time Anakin comes up he’s worth mentioning however given the 3-4 auctions for MOC Anakin’s last year he may also be our number 2 inductee into the hall of fame.

In the world of Vintage Star Wars there are so many focuses that one can have it’s hard to believe that collectors ever get bored with collecting. In addition to figure focuses there are several focus collections that play on adjacent products that are associated with the Vintage figure line. From play sets, vehicles to the 12 Inch figure line there are several options for Star Wars vintage figure collectors to stem out to. One of my personal favorites to look at is the POTF coin line. The set of 62 coins (some available via figures and other available only as mail away offers) is quite impressive and popular amongst figure collectors. And why not, the detail is great, there is a good mix of challenging pieces and readily available pieces, and there is a lot of breadth in the line. We’ve covered the coin set at one other point in the past, and since then we’ve seen some strong price appreciation with the example we see here. Of course as any POTF coin collector can attest, buying a set is much more economical (in terms of piecing together a complete 62 coin run) but it’s nowhere near as rewarding as doing the diligence of hunting and collecting each of the 62 coins in this run. Because of the varying rarity of the coins we won’t assign a number to the rarity of the collection, however it’s been rumored that there are as many as 50+ complete sets of the 62 coins in the collecting community, showing that putting together a set is an attainable goal if you put in the time, effort and have the funding to pursue such a conquest.

Uzay figures continue to be some of the most sought after figures in the Vintage Series. And why not, if you’re truly looking for something that’s off the wall, novel but at the same time eerily cool, then collecting Uzay may be your thing (if you also have the 3-4K to spend on each figure). Uzay was a bit off the wall in comparison to other foreign versions of the Vintage series, with unique figures like Blue Stars and Headman, or card backs that feature vehicles that weren’t in any movie and don’t resemble any toy in the series (i.e. Tie Fighter Pilot Cardback) it’s quite the unique series. With finds still occurring today we see this segment continuing to grow in terms of value and popularity amongst vintage collectors. In fact Uzay may be the hottest property in the Vintage community today and as of recent years. It doesn’t come at a price point that allows all collectors to get into the product, rather the price of entry puts some steep barriers around collecting the line. Thus making the collecting of Uzay’s up there with collecting vintage Rolex’s and Faberge.

This month we have an example of an Uzay carded figure that was released in the main vintage line. C-3PO maybe another novelty in the line; given that it features R5-D4 in the image, a figure that was never released (at least to my knowledge) on an Uzay cardback. The scene itself is a bit trippy as it features a lot of deep colors and interesting landscape. Overall a very cool piece and right on the money for the market usually bears for these items.

A few months back we covered a few other figures from the Spanish line. All of which saw incredible price points much like the Luke Bespin example we have here. Although Uzay may be more popular due to the novelty aspect and unique figures released, the Spanish figures could very well be the rarest MOCs in the vintage line. With all examples in the last year selling for more than $1500 a piece even for poor examples these figures are in demand and in short supply as well.

For our last pair of auctions in this month’s detailed update we have two Lily Ledy figures with very high price points. Lily Ledy continues to be a major focus for die hard vintage collectors. These two pieces along with some of the POTF and Uzay examples that we’ve covered all came from one high end seller that dropped a lot into the market at the beginning of April, including a very cool Greatest American Hero proof card. The two examples we have in front of us did very well overall driving some strong price impression in the market.

Price – 6 = $1025/7 = $2476

Rarity – 7/8-8

Other Noteworthy Auctions:

As we round out the month of April, we wanted to present a few of the notable pieces that were up on the market in the past 60 days but didn’t quite make the cut for the regular show. With that here are some other great noted notables for the month of April!